Peeta's Reason
by wywrite
Summary: There's a reason Peeta can't help loving Katniss.


Disclaimer: Of course I do not profit from this.

A/N: I think that Peeta was so drawn to Katniss because of her fierce and protective love of her family and because of the lack of such love in his own family. I'm trying to flesh this idea out just a little in this short one-shot. Really, this idea begs a longer story, but I am finding writing scenes that explain emotions to be very, very difficult. Also, I stole the name of P's middle brother, Leven, from another story but I can't remember which one-my thanks, still, to the author. Malt I came up with myself, but it may very well already be out there.

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I noticed her when we were both five. I'd like to say that I loved her since then, but I that's really not true; it's just the bloom of love staining backwards through my memory. I do remember admiring her pretty red dress, her braid black against it, and the way she hopped next to her father as she held his hand on the way to school.

And when she sang, I don't think I breathed again that day. She stole my breath for a day and my words for the next eleven years.

After all, how do you talk to someone whose voice opened the heavens to you?

That was still the good time, before my mom got angry and sad. I just admired Katniss for her joy and energy and, well, something that was just her.

I suppose it isn't that often that the object of a childhood crush really turns out to be someone you really can admire and love, but for me it happened.

It's easy to love as a child, surrounded by a warm and loving family. It didn't matter that we ate bread and milk for dinner for dinner most days, or that we traded for the meat we did eat instead of buying at the butcher shop. (It's kind of funny to me, how all the Merchants seem to think their own trade the least important. We always ate stale bread but mom and dad made sure we always had clothes and shoes that fit well and looked decent. The tailor's daughter always wore clothes in the most awful fabrics imaginable and the cobbler's children always wore canvas shoes, but they brought ham sandwiches to school for lunch on our good white bread.) But as I grew older, I noticed that mom wasn't as kind as I remembered. She had come from the poorest Merchant family and had always been, well, careful with money. Waste drove her to distraction, and she went to great lengths to make sure everything we had was used to fullest. Dad told me once that we were relatively wealthy, even in the Merchant district, and it was partly because of mom's careful planning.

It was hard satisfying her sense of thrift, though. In the bakery we weighed the flour and sugar out carefully and learned quickly not to drop an egg. Our handwriting in school was tiny and neat so we could fit the most writing onto a page of paper. We wore our pencils down to nubs before we replaced them.

I was about ten when I realized that my mom wasn't like my friends' moms, though, and I don't just mean about her being a tightwad. By the time I was in fourth grade, she was always sour and grouchy, especially to me. In fact, she was always nicest to Malt, my oldest brother. She only tolerated Leven and me.

And it was when I was eleven that, knowing her uncertain temper and hatred of waste, I burned the bread for Katniss.

That was the only time she ever hit me, but it was the end of her already limited kindness to me. After that she treated me like an untrustworthy employee. She barked her orders and watched over me in the kitchen as though I was likely to steal a loaf behind her back, which I never would have done—as long as Katniss wasn't starving under our apple tree.

As her mothering diminished to nothing, I spent as little time at home as possible if Dad weren't around (who had been compensating as best he could for mom's coldness since he started noticing it). And so if I wasn't working after school, I lingered there and watched Katniss. I had watched her slowly starving, but now I watched her grow strong. Maybe not in her body, not right away, but he walk became confident and her shoulders square. It was as though she had been carrying a heavy load and though it had not dimished, she had become equal to the task.

When I was thirteen I noticed other boys noticing her. She wasn't the prettiest girl in school, but her graceful and silent walk, her rope of dark hair, and the strength in her quiet expression was attractive to boys other than me. But she was absorbed in the task of feeding her family; she never noticed them (or me, either).

When I was fifteen I fell in love with Katniss and knew it. I had had a bad week. Mom was tyrannical in the bakery and dad had been sick and unable to run interference between me. Malt didn't say anything, as usual, and Leven had begged two nights in a row off ages ago and wasn't about to forfeit one of them. I had had as many comments about my uselessness as I could take. After my work was done I left the house, even though it was late, determined to stay away until I was sure everyone else was asleep. I wandered with no destination in mind, until I came to the meadow.

I'm not sure what Katniss and her sister were doing there, and they were just leaving as I arrived. Prim was carrying a big bowl of something—berries, I think—and Katniss had her game bag over her shoulder. Just as they were leaving Prim stumbled and dropped the bowl. Berries scattered across the ground. I reflexively ducked my head. Such a misstep in my house led to harsh words and a night without dinner. But Katniss quickly set down her bag and, ignoring the berries, which must have been worth a great deal to them, and helped her sister up. Then together they salvaged as many berries as they could and went on their way, with Katniss lending a supporting hand to Prim over the uneven ground.

I had known before how I admired her and wished to be her friend, but now I knew how much I wanted that concern. I wanted the sort of love that protected and provided and supported and forgave.

I stayed and cried in the meadow.

After that everything fell into place for me. The more I watched Katniss—with her sister, carrying her game bag into the Hob, serious at school—the more deeply I fell in love. All the pieces fit. I almost burst with pleasure the time she overheard a funny story I was telling—I meant for her to overhear it—and I caught the amused smile that played across her mouth and the twitch of her eyebrows. I liked her voice when she answered questions in class—lower than most girls and steady with confidence. I dreamed about unlacing those hunting boots she wore. And most of all I loved how she loved her sister. All the times she acted cold and uninterested to the people around, well, those were just an act. An act to keep herself safe, maybe, but an act. When Katniss gave her love, she gave it completely, and I thirsted to be the man she would give her love to. At the same time, I longed to provide for her and comfort her. To be a shoulder to lean on, a friend to laugh with, a body to hold, lips to kiss, a man to stand by, a man to trust, a man to love.

It's funny how things turn out.

I had never pushed my friendship on Katniss. It never seemed like the right time. She was absorbed in caring for her family and getting through school, and frankly, I wanted so much more than friendship.

And there was no sense in asking for something a person doesn't have the time to give, even if they want to give it, and I wasn't sure Katniss would want to give me the time of day, much less anything else.

So when we stood there on that platform, pale with horror, I realized I had nothing left to lose. Even my life was forfeit. But I wasn't going to give it to the Capitol. I was going to give it to her.


End file.
